


sometimes a family is nine unrelated superheroes and an adopted teenage boy

by shrill_fangirl_screaming



Series: sometimes a family is nine unrelated superheroes and an adopted teenage boy [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Secret Identity, Team as Family, teen rating is because I swear a lot, wherein the Avengers adopt Peter Parker and Spider-Man seperately
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-07 01:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11613213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shrill_fangirl_screaming/pseuds/shrill_fangirl_screaming
Summary: When Peter Parker is fourteen years old, he fixes one of the Black Widow's bracelets and ships it to Avengers Tower. Tony Stark hires him on the spot.When Peter Parker is fifteen years old, he's bit by a spider and everything changes. He keeps his superhero life a secret from the Avengers team that has become a second family to him, but how long can he keep up the act?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [general_lelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/general_lelia/gifts).



> A quick note about what is and is not canon for this story: Obviously, Tony can’t know Peter Parker is Spider-man, and also Civil War was a hot mess (I loved it, but come on), so I’ve retconned Civil War in its entirety. We’re picking up at the end of Phase 2, after Ultron (and technically Ant-Man, but no one really cares about Ant-Man). I’ve also retconned all canonical romance. I don’t have time to develop romantic subplots and half the canon ships are trash (@AOU's Bruce/Nat). As for Spidey, I’m still using Tom Holland as my Peter Parker, although I’m fleshing him out with details from other iterations of Spidey. I’m also having him meet the Avengers a little early, and because MCU internal consistency is a literal clusterfuck I can say that happened whenever I goddamn want. It is because of this clusterfuck I felt a note about what canon I’m using was necessary. Carry on.
> 
> OH! And SHIELD isn't Hydra because Reasons. Winter Solider is easily one of the best movies in MCU canon but also I want to use SHIELD, so it was partially retconned. I kept Sam and that's about it. Sorry not sorry.

It all started when Peter Parker, at the tender age of fourteen, found one of Black Widow’s electric stinger bracelets on the ground.

He was a superhero geek in addition to being a regular old science geek, and so he’d shadowed the Avengers at the very edge of their battle with a Hydra cell. He wasn’t stupid, and he’d lived in New York through the goddamn Chitauri invasion as well as all the rest of the Avengers’ nonsense, so he didn’t get too close, but… he saw Thor call down lightning, he saw Hawkeye shoot arrows from impossible distances, and best of all, he saw goddamn Iron Man shooting repulsor blasts across the skyline.

New York was awesome.

He’d been walking home, thinking about getting a camera to get (better-quality) pictures from his superhero-watching, when he’d kicked a piece of debris in the street only to realize it was Black Widow’s bracelet.

“You’re super broken,” he said, picking it up. It shocked his fingers- he tossed it to his other hand, sticking his fingers in his mouth. “That was mean,” he said around them. “Don’t do that.”

Still, it was a _genuine_ piece of superhero tech- of _StarkIndustries_ tech. He brought it home, ignoring Uncle Ben and Aunt May in favor of cracking it open and looking at the wiring. It was a work of art, really, the way this thing was designed, and as such, even a novice like him could figure out a patch job with a basic understanding of electronics and engineering.

(In the interest of full disclosure, he did put on the fixed bracelet and pretend to beat up a lamp in his room. Peter Parker was a young man obsessed with superheroes and relatively confident in his masculinity- he was _more than happy_ to pretend to be Black Widow with a _genuine piece of her tech_.)

With the help of his aunt and uncle, he boxed it up and addressed it to Black Widow at Avengers Tower. Inside the box, he placed the following note:

_Hey, I found your bracelet after that last battle and fixed it up for you! Thank you for saving the city- all of the times._

_Sincerely,_

_Peter Parker_

 

Tony Stark showing up on his doorstep a week later was an unexpected surprise.

“Hi,” Tony Stark said to Peter, who opened the door at Aunt May’s request. “I’m looking for Peter Parker.”

Peter’s jaw dropped. This doesn’t happen often outside of cartoons, but it does happen- rarely, when one is good and truly shocked. “I- I’m Peter Parker. You’re Tony Stark.”

“I know,” Mr. Stark said, stepping smartly over the threshold. “Your parents home, kid?”

Peter shook his head. “My aunt and uncle are,” he said. Actually, he wanted them with him, because was this real? Was this really happening? Was Tony Freaking Stark, aka _Iron Man_ , in their apartment? “Aunt May? Can you come here?”

“Is it for me?” she calls back, walking in from the kitchen. She freezes in the doorway, hands wrapped around a towel. “Oh. Um- can we help you, Mr. Stark?”

“Your kid fixed up a piece of my tech a few days back, shipped it back to us with a note. You did fix it, right?” Mr. Stark asked, addressing the last to Peter. “It wasn’t a teacher or something, or your uncle?”

Peter shook his head. “No. I mean, yes. I mean, I fixed it. I found it after that fight and figured the Black Widow needed it back, so-“

“She says it’s good as new,” Mr. Stark said. “I cracked it open-  I had to, to make sure you weren’t trying to bomb us or something- and inside… an entirely acceptable patch job. On my tech.”

“Am I in trouble?” Peter asked.

Mr. Stark shook his head. “You want a job?”

“I’m fourteen,” Peter replied reflexively. Aunt May threw an elbow into his ribs. “But yeah, yes, a job would be nice.”

Mr. Stark nodded, clapping his hands together. “Excellent. You’re hired. I want an extra pair of hands to work on our tech with me. Keeping the Iron Man suit in tip-top shape is a full-time job, and we keep acquiring new hangers-on who need tech upgrades because _honestly_ those falcon wings were an embarrassment to engineering before I got my hands on them, and Hawkeye’s always breaking things, _and_ I have a company to run. So, what do you say? Wanna be a superhero repair boy?”

It took a second for Peter to make his voice work. “I- uh, I- yes. Yes, that would be _awesome_.”

“Good,” Mr. Stark said. “Swing by the Tower, like, tomorrow, and we’ll figure out the paperwork and get you started. The sooner you start, the sooner I never have to hear Clint Barton whine again.”

As quickly as he came in, he was gone. He nodded at Aunt May, then at Peter, then turned on his heel and strode out of the room. The door swung gently back and forth behind him.

Everything was quiet for a moment.

“Did that just happen?” Peter asked.

“Yes,” Aunt May replied. “After school tomorrow, I’m going to drive you to Avengers Tower. Because you have a job there. Working for the Avengers.”

Peter nodded. “Life is _weird_ ,” he decided. That worked for him, though. He liked it.

 

 (fanart by [dopekryptonitething](dopekryptonitething.tumblr.com) on tumblr)

 

About four months in, shortly after he turned fifteen, his life changed again. The spider, Uncle Ben, everything all at once and he couldn’t come in for a while. There were funeral plans to make and a city to wall-crawl and web-shoot through. Eventually, though, Tony Stark came back, picked him up in an outlandish red-and-gold car, and drove him back to work.

Wanda sat with him as he tinkered with an improvement Tony had sketched out for the comms. She was quiet, reading a book and sipping coffee as Peter worked.

“I know loss,” Wanda said out of the blue. She was new to the team, newer than Peter was, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with her yet. She looked up at him, over the top of her book. “In Sokovia, my twin. I know loss.”

Peter’s throat got thick. “Yeah,” he said through it, “Um. Yeah.”

“It is better when you are not alone,” Wanda added. “And you are not alone.”

She went back to her book, which was good, probably. Peter wasn’t sure what to do with that. He was an unprepared, scared fifteen-year-old kid who got bizarre spider-powers due to a stroke of _luck_ and decided to use them to be an off-brand of an off-brand of an Avenger. “You aren’t either,” he said back, and then immediately regretted it.

The Scarlet Witch looked over at him then slowly, impossibly, started to smile.

She sat with him the entire time he was tinkering, and the rest of the team drifted in and out, checking on him with varying degrees of success at being subtle. When Peter was done for the day, Tony came in, looked like he was about to say something, and then gave Peter a nod. “We’re glad to have you around, kid,” he said. “You’re a good kid and we’re proud of you.”

Peter didn’t trust himself to talk. He just nodded back.

Tony cleared his throat. “Someone get this kid a hug?”

“You are ridiculous,” Wanda said, rolling her eyes, but still she came over and gave Peter a hug- he didn’t realize how much he needed one until her arms were around him and he was fighting not to cry.

After a few seconds, she pulled away and smiled at him. “You are not alone.”’

“Yeah,” Peter said, looking between Wanda and Tony. “Yeah.”

Tony snapped his fingers, seemingly uncomfortable with the moment. “Want me to take you home via the Iron Man suit?”

“Yes,” Peter said, smiling for the first time since the gunshot. “That’d be cool.”

“You’re damn right,” Tony said, clapping him on the shoulder and steering him out of the Tower.

There, in Tony’s somewhat awkward but _present_ company, was the first time, but not the last, that Peter seriously considered telling the Avengers who he was. That he was Spider-Man, that is. That Peter Parker, Tony’s tech sidekick, was a YouTube joke in a silly costume that occasionally managed to stop a pickpocket. They’d laugh and laugh, he thought, laugh and laugh and then tell Aunt May and together they’d all wrap him in Bubble Wrap and lock him in a room and never, ever, ever let him out again, and he’d miss this, playing with superhero tech and the camaraderie of the Avengers team and that wasn’t a risk he could take.

And so, he did both. All, really. Peter Parker- promising student of Midtown High, devoted (or mildly absentminded) nephew, intern at StarkIndustries, and your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

All in a day’s work, right? Hey, if the Avengers could do it, so could he.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the AO3 can be tricky about getting information just right on the first chapter posted of multi-chapter works, so to clarify, the last chapter was technically a prologue. This chapter is about a year later and begins the real action of our story.

“Okay, okay, line on up,” Peter said, holding his box out in front of him. “What did you break this time?”

The Avengers, bundling themselves off the Quinjet, formed a somewhat orderly line in front of him. Tony, first as usual, jetted right past him with a thumbs-up. Someday, Peter might get to look at the inside of the Iron Man suit. Today was not that day.

So, first in line for _him_ was Natasha Romanoff, the famed and feared Black Widow. “This one got crushed,” she warned him, dropping her stinger bracelet in his box. “It might not be salvageable.”

“’Sokay, me and Mr. Stark will figure it out,” Peter said.

“I’m _Tony!_ ” Tony shouted back from across the room. Peter smiled slightly, which made Natasha laugh as she walked by.

Next in line was Thor, looking very ashamed of himself. Peter laughed and asked, “Did you fry your comm again?”

Thor dropped his comm into the box, head hanging low. “It does not react well to lightning.”

Peter nodded. “Okay. We’ll try again. Version 116 will be able to withstand a magical lighting bolt. I’m feeling good about number 116. Lucky number 116.”

“You have the heart of a warrior as your face your unbeatable foe,” Thor said.

Peter grinned at him, then shifted his attention to the next person in line. Clint Barton, with a shit-eating grin, dropped his entire quiver into Peter’s box, making the boy buckle slightly under the unexpected weight. “The arrowhead rotation thing is sticking again, just enough to drive me nuts. I’m also out of explosive arrowheads and grapplers, so if you could make me, like, thirty of each of those, that would be nice. Also, I want a smoothie.”

“Dummy makes the smoothies,” Peter replied.

“I want an edible smoothie,” Clint corrected.

Peter shrugged. “Then you’re out of luck.”

“Smartass,” Clint replied, then bounced along.

Sam was next in line, cradling Redwing in his hands. “I think Redwing isn’t feeling well,” he said.

“Stop anthropomorphizing your tech in front of the kid!” Tony shouted at Sam, 70% inside the Iron Man suit. “He’s impressionable!”

“It’s okay, I promise!” Peter shouted back, then turned back to Sam. “What’s wrong?”

Sam sighed and rubbed at the sides of his little drone. “I don’t know, he just seemed a little sluggish while he was flying around today. His reaction times aren’t quite right. Could you run a diagnostic, give him a tune-up?”

Peter put his box down and carefully eased his hands around Redwing. “Sure,” Peter said, putting the little AI down on a nearby empty stool. “He’ll be my first priority.”

“Remember that he likes that really high-quality oil Tony uses on the Iron Man suit,” Sam said. “And keep him cold! He doesn’t do well in heat.”

Peter nodded. “I will. I remember.” Sam still hesitated, looking at Redwing. “I’ll take really good care of him, Sam, I promise. I always have in the past, right?”

“I know.” Sam looked at Redwing one last time, then hurried away.

“He is ridiculous,” Wanda observed. She and Vision were next, and as neither of them had anything technological even peripherally associated with their powers, they almost never had any work for him. “It is a machine.”

“Don’t let Sam hear you say that,” Peter replied. “He loves this little thing.” He ran a hand over the back of the little AI drone.

Wanda continued to look skeptical, but Vision shrugged. “To each their own.”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “And it’s by _far_ the coolest piece of tech I get to work with, so I’m more than happy to take Redwing _whenever_ Sam wants me to.”

Wanda laughed. “You are a delight to have around, Peter,” she said, then walked off, hand-in-hand with Vision.

Bruce was next- he tried to walk past Peter quickly, too quickly to say hello, but Peter stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Hi, Dr. Banner,” Peter said. “I have some more music one of my friends recommended.” He pulled out a thumb drive and handed it over. “For your after-battle playlist.”

Bruce turned the thumb drive over in his hands. “You sure it’s good?”

“I listened through the songs myself, first,” Peter said. “I like them. My friend’s in kind of a folk music phase, so there’s lots of banjos and I think someone plays the spoons? I don’t know. I can ask her.”

“Okay,” Bruce said, then offers Peter a tentative smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome!” Peter said, releasing him.

Last but not least, was Actual Captain America. It took many months of concerted effort on Steve’s part for Peter to stop calling him Actual Captain America aloud, but it was by that point firmly engraved into Peter’s head, because this wasn’t a lookalike or some guy playing a role. This was Captain America. Actual Captain America, with his thumbs tucked into the belt on his uniform and stopping in front of Peter with a fond, paternal smile.

“Hey, Peter,” Actu- Steve said. “How’s school going? You had a Spanish quiz the other day, right? Have you gotten that back?”

Peter shook his head. “Señora King always takes forever to grade things. But straight A’s so far this semester, at least. And I’m getting fives on the practice APs, so.”

“That’s great!” Steve said, and it’s weird, because _Actual Captain America was proud of him._ “I know you were nervous signing up for your first AP classes this year. Let us know if you need to adjust your schedule, yes? In case you need more time to study, or even just de-stress. You’re a kid, Peter, you’re allowed to have fun.”

Peter smiled and nudged the box of broken superhero tools at his feet. “This is fun for me,” he explained. “Promise.”

“Of course,” Steve replied, then ruffled Peter’s hair. “Keep up the good work, okay, Peter? We’re proud of you.”

“Thanks,” Peter said, then settled himself down with all the broken gadgets and gizmos. Fixing things for the Avengers was the best kind of time-sink he’d ever come across, better than any kind of video game or movie. As a result, he kind of… zoned out.

 

“Hey, Peter,” Tony said. “You gotta eat or your aunt’s gonna kill me.”

Peter blinked and looked up. “How long have I been here?”

“It’s seven, so about three and a half hours. You’re good.” Tony offered him a sandwich. “I swear to God, though, if you don’t take this sandwich in the next thirty seconds your aunt May will materialize and yell at me for a solid hour, and I get enough of that between Steve and Pepper.”

Peter took pity on the man and took his sandwich- turkey and Swiss, with the fancy mustard he liked. “Wanda make it?”

Tony nodded. “Steve reminded us, she made it. Vision tried to help.”

“What did she stop him from putting on it this time?”

“Marshmallow fluff. Thought it was mayo,” Tony said. “And I know, I know, you don’t like mayo either, so we told him that was a terrible excuse and that only people who can eat should be even peripherally involved in food preparation. He’s now banned from the kitchen. FRIDAY’s enforcing it.”

“Thanks,” Peter said, taking another bite of the sandwich.

Tony plopped down on the floor beside him, looking through Peter’s box. “They give you anything good?”

“The usual couple broken bits and pieces, and I gave Redwing a tune-up for Sam,” Peter said. He picked up the drone with his free hand and gave it to Tony. “Wanna look it over?”

“Nah,” Tony said, reaching to put it in the “DONE” box. “Your work is good, and it probably wasn’t even broken anyway.”

Peter swallowed his bite and said, “You know if Sam sees Redwing in with the rest of everything in the DONE box, he’s gonna freak out, right?”

Shit-eating grin on his face, Tony replied, “Yup.”

“Steve’s gonna yell at you.”

“Steve yells at me all the time, I’m immune to it now.”

Peter side-eyed him. “I’ve gotten his Stare of Disapproval a few times. I don’t think it’s the kind of thing you get immune to.”

Tony sighed deeply. “You’re right, it’s not. Anyway, I have fed you, it’s after 7, and so you know what that means. We have to give you a ride home.”

“You really don’t-“

“We have to give you a ride home,” Tony repeated, eyes steely. “Any preference for how you get home?”

Peter took another bite of his sandwich and hummed. Flying was fun, it really was, and so Tony, Vision, and Sam were his frequent chauffeurs. But today he wasn’t in the mood for flying, not really. “The Black Widow rides a motorcycle, right?”

“If you just want an excuse to cling to Natasha for a half-hour, I should warn you that a, she is permanently lethally armed, and b, she does like giving hugs if you’re not creepy about it. If you’re creepy about it, she judo-flips you to the ground, and yes I speak from experience, but-“

“No,” Peter said, laughing nervously. “No. Um. It’s- Steve would drive at about twenty miles an hour and make me wear shin guards-“

“Which is dumb, because he doesn’t wear a helmet half the time, continue,” Tony said.

Peter rolled his eyes. “And Clint would scare me half to death because he thinks it’s funny. And I don’t think anyone else rides a bike, or at least, not regularly.”

Tony nodded. “Sound logic. You finish up here, I’ll grab Nat, and then you’ll be on your way back home.”

“Cool. Thanks, Mr. Stark.”

“Tony,” Tony said.

Peter smiled angelically. “Sure thing, Mr. Stark.”

“One day,” Tony promised, one hand on Peter’s shoulder, “One day I will find who paid you to do this to me, and I will have very stern words with them. In the suit.”

Sure he would. It was the entire rest of his team. They talked Peter into it on like day two of the job, when he was first trying out their first names in his nervous mouth, and they all begged him to keep calling Tony Mr. Stark because of the reaction it got.

He had about five more minutes, eating the sandwich and finishing tinkering with Thor’s comm. Then he felt a tap on one shoulder. He knew it was pointless, because he knew it was Natasha, but he had to try anyway. He looked at the opposite shoulder, on a hunch, but of course she wasn’t there. He turned his head to the other side and sure enough, there she was, smirking. He literally never looked on the correct side on his first try, because she was evil. “Are you allowed to use your superspy powers on defenseless fifteen-year-olds?” Peter asked.

“You’re not defenseless,” Natasha said. “Me and Cap taught you basic self-defense like three weeks after Tony adopted you. This is training.”

“This is hazing,” Peter replied, under his breath.

Natasha nodded once. “They’re one and the same around here, most of the time. Anyway, come on, I gotta get you home. If you stay here any later than seven-thirty FRIDAY is supposed to call Pepper, and then she yells at all of us for mistreating a minor and threatens to make us cut back your hours.”

“No!” Peter said. “No, I like it here! I’ll go, I promise.”

“Then come on,” Nat said, passing him a helmet. “Let’s get you home.”

 

The next day was a Spider-Man day, rather than a StarkIndustries day. Peter had tried to do both relatively full-time, right after he got started as Spider-Man, but between them and classes at Midtown, he actually stopped sleeping for a week.

Suffice to say it ended badly, and after a mild emotional breakdown Peter restricted himself to one or the other on any given weekday. He’d worried at first that it would be conspicuous- Spider-Man only showing up on certain days- but quickly realized that not many people paid attention to Spider-Man. Sure, he did good work and the YouTube hits on him webslinging his way around the city were decent, but he wasn’t an Avenger. His suit was a hot mess. No one really cared.

No one caring about you, Peter mused as he flew down the street, was the key to keeping this secret identity secret.

Then he smashed his face into something. And not a normal something, like a wall or a billboard (look webslinging is _hard_ ) but like… alive? A wall of flesh as tall as a building? Peter backed up, telling his eyes to make sense of what the fuck was in front of him, and kept backing up until he could see the creature in its entirety.

“Is that a giant naked mole rat?” Peter asked. “This city is so _weird!_ I love it!”

A stressed-looking young woman with a giant backpack shouted at him, “You love it? The fuck, Spider-kid, you’re supposed to fight things like this?”

“Oh,” Peter said. “Oh right, yeah, yeah, I got this. I can do this.” What would the Avengers do? Probably blast it with some ridiculously overpowered weapons or supernatural abilities, but all Peter had was some homemade webslingers, improved senses, and the ability to climb up walls.

Well, that’s a place to start.

He scaled the nearest building to get a better look at the creature stumbling its way through the city. It did indeed look like a naked mole rat, but not the cute kind that was on that old cartoon from like the ‘90s or whatever. It was vaguely demonic, with two front teeth big enough to be skis. “Oh, that’s scary,” Peter said to himself. “That’s really scary.”

What would the Avengers do?

A memory bubbled to the front of Peter’s mind- Steve and Thor joking about the Star Wars movies, how _of course_ the Death Star had a weak spot because everybody has a weak spot.

Find the weak spot.

Peter watched the hideous, oversize, _revolting_ naked mole rat flatten a gazebo, biting away a chunk of a building with its teeth, which were apparently stronger than stone. He was already pretty sure this was not a naturally occurring creature, but that really did it. No way a normal tooth is stronger than stone, and he did _not_ want to find out what they’d do to him.

Weak spot.

The eyes, maybe?

Peter had gotten pretty accurate with his webshooters- he took careful aim, then sprayed webbing all over the thing’s beady little demon eyes.

The thing wailed in outrage, thrashing and squashing about half the cars on the road. Civilians streamed from the place, and Peter remembered that one of Redwing’s oldest programs was the Protect the Innocents initiative, which ordered the drone to do just that. Peter threw up some webs between the demon naked mole rat and the panicking civilians. “Stay back!” Peter shouted, waving an arm at them. “Stay back!”

“The fuck are you supposed to be?” a guy with a man-bun shouted back at him.

“Spider-Man!” Peter replied. “I got this, get back!”

“Someone call the Avengers!” another person shouted, but at that point Peter had to refocus his attention on the naked mole rat because apparently, this thing did not navigate primarily by sight and had crashed against the building Peter was clinging to, teeth coming dangerously close to his legs.

Peter said some words Aunt May would _not_ approve of and got to the other side of the street, quick.

Okay, so the eyes weren’t the weak spot. It was sniffling around the street with its gross snotty nose, maybe that was it? He shot webbing at it, but the snout was so slimy and _disgusting_ his webs slid right off.

“I regret all of my life choices,” Peter said, then launched himself at the gigantic, gross, naked mole rat snout.

The thing was exactly as horrible as he thought it would be. However, it seemed to be worth it, as one good punch to the inside of the nose made the thing squeal in outrage and fall to the ground, writhing in pain. Peter gave it a few more good punches and then rocked back a little to examine the scene. The road was busted, cars were broken and buildings smashed, and the hideous thing was on its back wriggling and squeaking like there was no tomorrow.

Peter wasn’t quite ready to kill this thing, he decided, so he better imprison it _really hecking well_ and then actually get some proper authorities up in here. He backed away from the creature cautiously- it was still pawing at its nose, _reet_ -ing in agony.

Good.

He then literally emptied his webshooters tying the thing to the ground. He’d topped them off with fluid that morning, and he _emptied_ the things over the giant naked mole rat’s stupid body. He had extra in his backpack, and in his house, and at the school, but if this didn’t work he was very deeply screwed in the short run.

The mass inside Peter’s web moved.

He held his breath.

It moved again.

Peter winced.

It moved once more, but the webbing held.

“Okay, that was scary. That was really scary,” Peter breathed. Okay, Spider-Man, you have successfully webbed a giant demon naked mole rat to the streets of New York, what are you going to do now?

“Call the Avengers,” Peter said, fiddling in the suit to pull out his phone from the shitty pocket he’d managed to sew in. “Call the Avengers.” Or, rather, Tweet at the Avengers, because that works better (#911 @AvengersOfficial with the address and any details, worked like a dream).

He was fiddling with the phone, trying to navigate to Spider-Man’s pathetic official Twitter, when he heard a very familiar voice say, “Nice work, kid.”

Peter turned around, very startled, to see Iron Man hovering next to him. “We just dealt with a whole army of them further downtown,” he said. “Couldn’t catch the creator, though, but we’ll get to it. Thanks for pinning this straggler- SHIELD will be happy to have a good sample to really analyze what happened. Is your webbing permanent?”

“I, uh- no, it’ll dissolve in about two hours, or when it gets wet,” Peter said.

“Probably smart. Cleans better off the sides of buildings that way,” Iron Man replied. “You’re calling yourself Spider-Man, right?” Peter nodded. “I think I’ve seen a few of your YouTube videos. You’re doing good work.”

“I- wow, um, thank you, Iron Man,” Peter said, desperately wishing for a voice modulator or something, “I- you know who I am. You know Spider-Man.”

Iron Man nodded. “We’ve been keeping an eye on you.”

“We?”

“Me and Cap, mostly. Scarlet Witch, too, because she thinks you’re funny on YouTube. I think she’s seen all of your Spider-Man Fails videos,” Iron Man said.

Peter groaned. “I don’t make those.”

“No, but they’re hilarious,” Iron Man said. “And numerous. You should come train with us sometime. See if we can help you suck a little less at this whole thing. And you need a new suit, this one is an embarrassment to the profession.”

Peter realized, in the moment, that saying yes was a terrible idea. That the Avengers already knew him as Peter Parker and really shouldn’t get to know him as Spider-Man, because it could compromise his identity. That yet another thing on his plate to deal with would probably push him back to the edges of a nervous breakdown.

But… Tony Stark was the closest thing Peter had left to a father figure. And so he opened his stupid mouth and said, “Yeah, that’d be awesome!”

Big mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to talk to me more about this story, feel free to hit me up at my tumblr, i-am-having-an-emotion!


	3. Chapter 3

The one thing Peter would never regret about this entire mess of a situation was the new suit.

It was ridiculously awesome. Truly. It had cool colors and a cool design and a cool little baby drone almost like Redwing in the middle of it, and it was way easier to move in and basically Peter was really grateful, and it made showing up as Spider-Man in Avengers Tower that much easier.

“You ready?” Iron Man asked, greeting him out on the balcony. Peter had wall-crawled and web-slung up here because the front door was for normal things and being here as Peter, not as Spider-Man, and if he got mixed up between his identities now he’d be deeply screwed.

Peter took a deep breath. “Probably not.”

“Oh, come on, we’re cool. Come in.”

Iron Man led him into the main gym, where all of the Avengers were working out. It was deeply weird to see all of them entirely suited up and actively superhero-ing- Peter was used to them at the end of a mission or in the middle of a day. At ease. There was a difference between Steve in his Captain America suit, cowl off and shield on his back, asking about school, and full-on Captain America savaging the fuck out of a training dummy.

For better or for worse, the Scarlet Witch is the first one to spot him. “There he is!” she said, bouncing over. “I miss your old suit. It had personality.”

“And very little protection from anything,” Peter said. “This one is way more tricked out.”

“Does that mean the Spider-Man Fails videos will stop?” Wanda asked, pouting slightly. “I love those videos. It is so funny to see you splat against a wall.” She giggled. “Splat.”

Peter nodded. “I am sure I will continue to embarrass myself while people record shaky footage on their cameras.”

“Good,” Wanda- but she was the Scarlet Witch now, the Scarlet Witch, because Peter was Spider-Man. “I like it. Welcome to our training room, Spider-Man. You can test your new suit here, where it is safe.”

Iron Man nodded. “Don’t worry about breaking anything, me and Peter can fix it.”

 _Shitfuck shitfuck shitfuck_. Peter swallowed hard and prayed his voice would sound normal, through the modulator he installed on the suit. “Peter?”

Wanda laughed again. “Tony adopted this sweet boy from a high school nearby, who’s very good with fixing gadgets. He does some of the work on our weaponry. I’m sure if you break anything in your costume, Peter will be able to fix it.”

She still said his name with that Sokovian accent, turning his name almost into Pietro. Steve had told him, quietly, right after she’d joined, that her twin brother had been named Peter, and he’d died in the fight in Sokovia. He’d expected her to avoid him after that, but she sought him out, made him Sokovian food and told him stories as he worked. She was one of his best friends (except for Ned, of course), and it was weird standing in front of her as a stranger as she talked fondly about him.

“He won’t be here while you’re here, though,” Iron Man said, clapping him on the shoulder.

Peter’s heart dropped through his stomach. “Why not?”

“Because Tony is overprotective,” Captain America said, walking over. “Hey, Spider-Man, I’m Captain America. Tony doesn’t like having new people around Peter until we can vet them and verify that they don’t mean us any harm. He’s a good kid and we put him in a dangerous spot. I’m sure you understand that, right?”

Peter nodded. He didn’t trust himself to talk. Steve and Tony were defending him… from him.

“Anyway,” Cap said, clapping him on the shoulder, “You came here to train, right? Let’s train.”

Cap steered him to a mat where the Black Widow waited, a smirk on her face. “Spider against spider?” she offered.

“You’ll kill me,” Peter said.

“She won’t kill you,” Cap replied immediately. “She doesn’t do that. Anymore. Much. But she’s the best at hand-to-hand we have, so she’s the best one to teach you. In you go, son.”

And so Spider-Man was shoved into the (metaphorical) ring with the goddamn Black Widow herself. “Can I use my powers?” he asked.

“Of course,” the Black Widow replied. “They won’t save you, but-“

She jabbed at his head, and only because of his accelerated reflexes he dodged it. For a solid minute, she threw kicks and punches that Peter managed to duck, dodge, and backflip around due to judicious application of spider-powers and sheer luck.

“You know-“ jab- “this shadow-boxing thing is very good-“ kick- “but if you want to win-“ punch- “you’ll have to hit me.”

Peter was exhausted, so he jumped straight up and stuck to the ceiling to catch a quick breather. “I’m not going to win,” he said. “I’m just delaying the inevitable for as long as I can.”

Natasha blew her hair out of her face with a faint smile. “Not with that attitude.”

“Not with any attitude. I won’t win unless you let me, so I’m just gonna keep dodging to minimize the number of bruises I’ll have to live with tomorrow.”

“And the hiding on the ceiling?” Natasha asked, one eyebrow arched.

Peter sighed. “I needed a breather. You’re scary.”

Natasha- the Widow, the Black Widow- stared at him in judgmental silence for a long moment. At least, Peter thought it was judgmental, right up until she leaned over and said, “Tony? I’m keeping this one.”

It was stupid, but Peter was feeling lucky. While she was distracted, he aimed his webbing for her ankle and pulled hard, launching Natasha into the air. She flipped with the momentum, yanking on his webbing to pull him off the ceiling. She landed in a roll and a crouch as he smacked the mat hard on his back. “Ow,” he said.

“Yeah, I’m keeping you,” Natasha said. “That was smart. If I wasn’t me, that would have worked. But I am me, and so…”

“Yep,” Peter said, doing his best to get up with lungs that had just been forcefully emptied of air. “Got it.”

He felt a strong hand clap his shoulder- Cap had come back, with a proud smile on his face. “Tony picked a good one,” he said. “You’ve got guts. We can teach you to fight, but we can’t teach you grit, and that’s what you really need to be an Avenger.”

Peter might have squeaked. He wasn’t proud, but Cap just sort of squeezed his shoulder with another bright smile and wandered back away to throw his shield around and bicker with Iron Man.

“This has been a day,” Peter said.

Nat smiled. “I know. Come on, let’s go again. I love shadow boxing.”

The rest of the training passed in a whirlwind. After a few more rounds with the Black Widow (he managed to dodge most of her blows, but the ones that landed inevitably sent him to the ground _hard_ ), he webbed arrows out of the air with Hawkeye and learned how to find a telekinetic’s weak points with the Scarlet Witch and it was all crazy and awesome until he found himself next to Iron Man. “Come on,” he said. “I should teach you a little bit about engineering. Enough to understand your suit, at least.”

Panic. Pure panic. Tony teaching him engineering was a Peter thing, not a Spider-Man thing, and what was that line from that old movie? _Don’t cross the streams._

“I’m good,” Peter said, hoping his voice was less mangled than it felt.

“No, you really need at least a basic understanding of this stuff-“

“No,” Peter said, pulling away. “I’m good. I, um-“ what to say that wouldn’t give him away, what to say… “I have a tech guy.” It wasn’t even a lie. The tech guy was Ned and also himself, but together they were the equivalent of a full tech guy, right?

Iron Man looked at him skeptically. “You have a tech guy,” he said, voice dripping disbelief. “Your suit was a sleeveless hoodie, leggings, and knee-high socks, and _you_ have a tech guy.”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “I’ll take the suit to him, see if he has any questions.” Again, not quite a lie- he was planning a sleepover with Ned already to pick apart genuine Tony Stark tech that he got to _take out of the Tower_. “Is that okay?”

Iron Man didn’t seem entirely convinced, but he went with it. “Okay. Fine.”

“Anyway, look at the time, I gotta fly,” Peter said. “You know how it is. Full double life and everything. This was great. Thanks, guys!”

With that, he shot a web and got the fuck out of there. He didn’t know what would happen if the Avengers found out Spidey was Peter Parker and vice-versa (other than general overprotectiveness and panic), and he didn’t really want to know. The idea terrified him. He didn’t want them getting too close.

 

The next day he went into his SI internship like everything was perfectly normal, like he hadn’t defeated a creature that was basically a giant penis with teeth and subsequently been _adopted_ by the _Avengers_.

His life got remarkably weird after that spider bite.

The normalcy itself was almost weird. Peter swiped his way into the building, trotted over to an elevator, and made his way to his workspace like nothing was wrong. His box of broken things was right where it always was, and Tony was halfway inside his suit rewiring something, and Steve was sketching absently in a corner with Wanda’s feet in his lap as she read.

Normalcy. He could do that.

“Hi, guys. People. Everyone,” he said.

“Hey, kiddo,” Steve said, looking up with a smile. “Did you have a good day at school? There was a quiz you were waiting to get back, right? Did that finally happen?”

Peter beamed back and nodded. “Yeah, actually. Nailed it!”

“Nice!” Steve replied. “We’re proud of you.”

“Apparently Spanish is the language of the future, we should all be learning it or whatever, but give me another computer language over Spanish any day of the week. Thor has Allspeak, he can translate for me,” Tony said. “Right?”

Steve put on his patented Look of Disapproval. “You could at least make an _effort_ , Tony.”

Wanda kicked Steve lightly on the leg. “Captain, it is very hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Let him just play with his suit.”

“Did you just call me old?” Tony asked.

Wanda smiled angelically, then went back to her book. An unequivocal “yes”. Peter snickered, then sat himself down next to the box of broken things. Thor’s fried comm was really the biggest deal of the bunch, now that Redwing had been carefully examined and given a sound bill of health. Plus, restoring Thor’s comm was old hat by now- Peter’d done it a dozen times. He could do it in his sleep.

He’d cracked the thing open and was making decent headway replacing the wires (now with extra insulation to protect them against unnatural surges in electricity), when Tony plopped down beside him and plucked another broken thing from the box. “Any ideas, kid?”

“Thor should just shout?” Peter asked. Tony laughed, and Peter grinned. “Yeah, actually,” he said, actually answering the question this time. It had come to him during training yesterday, the training that Spider-Man got from the Avengers and thus the training that Peter had absolutely no reason to know about. “I was watching old YouTube clips of you guys fighting, right-“ a lie- “And I noticed Widow- Natasha, sorry- likes taking people down with her legs.” That part is true, as the heel-shaped bruises all over his body can attest. “And the Widow’s Bite bracelets work so well, I was thinking maybe-“

“Same thing for her feet,” Tony said. He turned Nat’s broken bracelet over in his hands. “Not a bad idea, kid. How’d we design it so it won’t impede motion?”

Peter pulled out a scrap piece of paper- the back of a worksheet, probably- and a pen. “I was thinking she mostly needs it on her heels, right-“ he scrawled a rough approximation of the Widow’s foot/ankle- “so it could slide on over her foot, she could wear it with any shoes, and it would settle on the heel. We’d have to reinforce it so she could walk, but-“

“It would make her that much deadlier,” Tony concluded. “Yeah, okay, I like this. FRIDAY, bring Nat down here when she has a chance, we have an idea to run by her.”

FRIDAY responded, “Ms. Romanoff is on her way down, sir.”

“Cool,” Tony replied. He pointed at the paper. “Work on this. After your chores, of course, but go nuts.”

“Wait,” Peter said, “You’re not going to do it?”

Tony made a face. “Nah, too busy. It was your idea anyway, you should be the one to make it. Don’t give away your ideas. Hoard them. Collect patents. Viciously enforce those patents. Build an empire to challenge mine. You know, usual high schooler things.”

Peter laughed a little, but mostly just smiled up at Tony. “Thanks, Mr. Stark. I won’t let you down.”

“I will _find out who paid you_ ,” Tony growled, then stormed off to his suit. Peter looked over at Steve and Wanda, both of whom were snickering to themselves. Wanda saw him looking over and gave him a thumbs-up.

Natasha, true to FRIDAY’s word, was down in a jiffy. She sat down next to Peter and they talked over the design, and he measured her feet and they talked a little more, because Peter’s hands could reassemble Thor’s comm even if his _head_ wasn’t attached. Normally, he thought that was a good thing, but not today.

“Oh, and guess what happened yesterday, Peter?” Natasha asked.

Peter tensed slightly, then forced himself to shrug. “I saw the news- did you break anything in the fight?”

“Bumps and bruises. Tony fixed our tech right up, grumbling all the while.”

She smiled as Tony shouted from across the room, “What is the point of hiring a minion if you have to do all the tedious stuff yourself?”

“He’s not a minion, he’s an intern!” Natasha shouted back.

“Same difference!”

Natasha rolled her eyes, then looked back to Peter. “The fight was fine, but Tony brought home a stray afterward. Do you know anything about Spider-Man?”

Well, fuck. So, this was fun and everything in his life ever was a mistake. That’s good to know. Peter focused on reassembling the comm. “Uh, I mean, Wanda and I went through the Spider-Man Fails YouTube channel once, and, like, some kids at school think he’s kinda cool.” Some kids, meaning him and Ned, because they both know Peter is Spider-Man, which is something the superspy/assassin in front of him doesn’t know. Yet. Lord help him.

“He came around and trained with us yesterday. Decent kid. Not well trained, but he’s got good reflexes. Good instincts.” Natasha, apparently noticing that Peter was slightly tense, put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. He’s not a threat. We’re making sure of that before he gets anywhere near you.”

An excuse for him to be weird about Spider-Man! Peter jumped on it gratefully. “I know not all vigilantes are as warm and fuzzy as you guys,” Peter said. “You know? Who knows who he might be under the mask.”

Before he could congratulate himself too thoroughly on sounding cool and normal, Natasha replied airily, “Oh, don’t worry, I’m working on it. I mean, come on, he’s clearly not much older than you, and I’m a superspy. Enhanced reflexes and webbing can’t keep me off his trail. Not for long, at least.”

 _God_ Peter was happy she hadn’t found out he was supersensory yesterday. He managed the heightened senses as Peter by visiting sites for people with autism (after he became hyperaware of everything touching him at all times, he totally _got_ the seams thing, it makes total sense), and as Spider-Man, he had his goggles. Used to have. Now had Tony’s ultra high-tech blinders.

Wait. Wouldn’t that mean Tony knew about his supersensory abilities? He’d have to ask Tony about that one later, why he hadn’t shared with the class. Peter couldn’t exactly ask him now, because Peter had no reason to know why Spider-Man was extrasensory and _god_ his life was a mess.

“That mask is a mess,” Peter replied, because it felt safe.

“Oh, Tony made him a new one,” Natasha said. “You know how it is when he gets his hands on someone new. Has to upgrade them. I mean, look at me. I have glowing bracelets that electrocute people now. I used to just have my guns and knives.”

Peter looked at her very carefully from the corner of his eye. Sometimes he forgot that Natasha of the motorcycle rides home and bizarre tastes in food was also a super-deadly assassin. “Don’t give me that,” Natasha said without visibly shifting her focus toward Peter. “I’m not dangerous to _you_.”

For reasons he couldn’t quite explain, that made him smile. Natasha jumped to her feet, then punched Peter in the shoulder. “Good talk,” she said. “I’m looking forward to some killer spurs.”

“Not killer as in assassinating people, right?” Peter called after her as she walked away. “Killer, like the colloquial use meaning awesome, right?” Natasha didn’t reply. “Right?!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad you all are excited about this story! I will be updating nightly- I have the whole fic written, each chapter just needs a final polish before it goes up. If you want to talk to me more about this story, or anything superheroes, definitely come say hi at i-am-having-an-emotion on tumblr!


	4. Chapter 4

 

Look, he wasn’t proud, but sometimes Peter would just do a quick loop around some neighborhoods- different ones every night, so no one could track him back to his house- and then sit at the top of some skyscraper and do his homework while listening to a police scanner. He was in a very competitive high school, okay, taking very difficult classes. He was a bona fide prodigy, but school was hard and they gave out a lot of busywork and sometimes doing it on the bus ride in, at lunch, and during boring classes was not sufficient.

He knew which rooftops had employee access (due to very embarrassing trial-and-error) and had finally found one where no one could bother him, nearly centrally located in his stomping grounds with good access to nearby buildings for webslinging. He was sitting on the edge, kicking his heels against the wall as he wrote out bullshit for English class and listened to the police scanner, when the Black Widow dropped down out of thin air beside him.

“Holy fuck,” Peter said, falling _off the roof_ and only not dying because his abilities let him cling to walls by mere fingertips. His other hand clutched his English worksheet. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Language,” Natasha said in an exaggerated low voice- it must be an inside joke Peter didn’t get.

Peter hauled himself back on top of the roof, resisting the temptation to shove his worksheet into his backpack, which was lying against the far side of an AC unit. Natasha would recognize Peter Parker’s backpack, probably. Didn’t want to risk it. “How did you do that?” he asked, only to just then see Wanda sitting on Natasha’s other side. “Oh. Her. Sorry, didn’t see you there, Scarlet Witch.”

“I am sneaky,” she said. “The Widow is teaching me how.”

“It’s working,” Peter replied.

The Black Widow fixed him with a glare, one eyebrow arched. “This surprises you, but you made me every time I’ve tailed you. Interesting.”

“Uh…” Peter began, regretting it instantly. “You, um. You have to travel by foot or car, right, but I have my, my webshooters. I can get around faster than you, it’s not hard to ditch you, and then, also, I assumed that when I was up here you couldn’t get to me, because, uh, I have webshooters and you don’t.”

“That’s not what I meant,” the Widow said. “I know how you get _away_ , but I am a highly trained spy who does not attract unwanted attention. How are you noticing me while I’m tailing you?”

Peter cleared his throat. “Well, if I told you, then you’d be able to tail me better, and I don’t want that. I don’t even know what you want out of tailing me, but can’t a guy have his privacy?”

Natasha considered that. “Huh. If I promise not to use this knowledge for evil, will you tell me?”

“That’s not promising not to follow me around,” Peter replied.

That earned him a genuine smile from the terrifying and deadly Russian assassin. “I will stop tailing you if you tell me how you notice me,” she said. “Promise.”

Peter pointed to his eyes. “I’m supersensory. Better than you, not as good as Daredevil. Mr- Iron Man put these eyes on my suit to help me focus, you know, not get overwhelmed, but I still have really good peripheral vision, and you have really red hair.”

“Tony’s getting chewed out about that later, but I’m glad the eyes aren’t just for the aesthetic,” the Black Widow concluded. “That would be pretty stupid.”

“So, why were you tailing me?” Peter asked.

“That wasn’t in our deal,” the Widow replied.

Wanda leaned around Natasha to explain, “We’re trying to decide if we trust you or not, and so we sent the Black Widow to figure out if you could be trusted, and ideally find out your secret identity.”

Cold fear sank into Peter’s veins like caffeine from those gross really strong coffees his aunt drank sometimes. “Please do not do that,” he said, voice smaller than he really wanted it to be.

Wanda came over to him in a flicker of red light and silver rings. “Are you safe?” she asked, one hand wrapping around his wrist.

“No, no, I’m fine,” Peter explained hurriedly, “No, I’m totally safe. I’m fine. I’m completely fine. I just- I need that to stay secret. It’s not bad, I just- I need that to just… just stay secret. Is that okay? Please?”

Natasha eyed him skeptically. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“The only bruises I have are from you, Widow,” Peter said.

That made Natasha and Wanda both crack a smile. “I’ll let it go,” the Black Widow said, leaning back a little bit.

“Tony is definitely going to try and track you down electronically, though,” Wanda said. “Just a warning.”

“Yeah, I expected that,” Peter said. “But um… why’d you tell me?”

The Scarlet Witch shrugged, looking up at the sky. “I understand the need for secrets. We both do.”

“Thanks,” Peter said. “I’m smiling, under the mask, by the way. You guys are great.”

Wanda beamed back. “You make friends quickly, Spider-boy.”

“Spider-Man,” Peter corrected.

Nat snorted. “Insisting on that doesn’t help your case, Spider-boy. I got what I came here for. Scarlet Witch, if you could?”

The Scarlet Witch rolled her eyes. “Goodbye, Spider-boy!” Wanda said cheerfully, then she and Natasha catapulted into the sky in a blast of red light and sparkles.

Peter watched them go with no small amount of trepidation. It was not until the reddish dot that was the two of them vanished in the distance that he finally relaxed. He flopped back against the rooftop with a hard exhale.

All that, and he still had this bullshit English assignment to finish for tomorrow.

God, he hoped there was a supervillain attack. That would at least be an interesting distraction.

 

The next day, doing his usual tinkering with Sam and Steve sparring both verbally and physically in the background, Peter was reminded to be careful what he wished for. The sound of something breaking echoed from behind Sam and Steve, and Peter looked up from Hawkeye’s quiver to see two huge blades cutting through the wall of the tower like it was made of butter.

“The hell is that?” Sam asked, but then the blades came through again and Peter could see they weren’t metallic, but made of bone, and oh fuck there was the giant face of a hideous naked mole rat.

“Deal with that!” Steve shouted at Sam, clicking his shield into place on his arm and retreating towards Peter. “You,” he said to Peter, “Come with me.”

Peter nodded like a bobblehead in an earthquake. Sam took to the air, speeding out the hole in the building the hideous creature made to fire on it from behind. That distracted the thing a little, but mostly made it turn around and then back up, trying to get away from the pain, meaning it crashed directly against the Tower.

Steve tucked Peter under his non-shield arm, keeping him behind the vibranium and out of the line of fire. “Go, go, go,” Steve ordered, half-carrying and half-leading Peter in towards the middle of the Tower. “Come on, gotta get you to the bunker.”

“You all have a bunker in here?” Peter asked. “How? Where? Since when?”

“I’m a little distracted right now, Pete,” Steve said, jerking his shield up to deflect a chunk of the ceiling that would have brained Peter.

He wisely shut up and let Captain America lead him towards the heart of the Tower. They stopped in the middle of a nondescript hallway, then Steve said, “FRIDAY, activate daycare protocol.”

“ _Daycare protocol_?” Peter objected.

“Authorization Steven Grant Rogers-“ he grit his teeth- “The star spangled man with a plan.”

A door appeared in the middle of a wall. “Authorization accepted. Daycare protocol activated.”

Steve pushed Peter gently inside the door, following him inside but holding the door open with a foot. “You okay? Did any of the debris hit you?” Steve asked.

Peter shook his head, then realized that was a really inadequate way to answer those questions. “I’m fine, it all missed me,” he said.

“Good. I need you to stay here while we deal with this, okay? One of us will come get you when the coast is clear. _Do not leave this room under any circumstances_. It will keep you safe until one of us can come get you, do you understand me?”

Peter nodded. “Yes, um, yes sir.”

Steve grinned and ruffled Peter’s hair. “You’re a good kid. Stay put, okay? We’ll come get you.”

Peter nodded again, then watched Steve walk back out the door.

Temporarily abandoned, Peter looked around the bunker. It was clearly designed and built by Tony Stark- it was a little too steampunk-flashy for it to have been anyone else. It was the size of his bedroom back home, maybe a little bigger, laid out almost like a studio apartment. There was a place to sit and a cot and, more alarmingly, a toilet, faucet, and cupboard full of shelf-stable food, like there was a chance he’d be in here for an extended stay.

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Peter said, and got to work.

Thankfully, he’d managed to grab his backpack as Steve hustled him from the workroom. “Hey, FRIDAY, can you hear me in here?” he asked.

No response. As he expected. He knew Tony Stark, at least a little. Tony might pretend not to care about anyone or anything, but Peter knew otherwise. Tony remembered everyone’s favorite kinds of foods, and constantly improved everyone’s equipment to make it safer, and even when he was pretending not to listen to Peter he could recite every detail of everything Peter told him, if he had to. He wouldn’t have left any way to externally access this bunker. If it was made to keep Peter safe inside, it would keep Peter safe inside until the end of time.

While that was touching as all get-out, Spidey wanted to go round two with the evil giant penises with teeth.

“All right,” Peter muttered, cracking open one of the walls to see the wiring inside. “Time to earn the big bucks.”

Fifteen minutes later, he’d managed to break out. Peter guessed Tony wouldn’t have expected him to want to break out, just for the bad guys to try and break in. It worked in his favor this time, though, so he wasn’t complaining.

He threw the suit on over his clothes and ran to join the fight.

At first, he wasn’t even sure if he was needed. The Avengers fought like a well-oiled machine, those with the ability to fly targeting the thing’s eyes, and those without on the ground hacking away at its feet. Hawkeye loosed arrow after arrow into the thing’s hide, and Wanda’s red lights sheltered and shepherded civilians away from the scene.

However, the temptation to fight _with_ the Avengers was too much. He shot a web and swung himself onto the creature’s snout. “The eyes aren’t really that sensitive,” he said, crawling towards its nose. “You really want to-“ he punched it in the snout again.

It wailed like a stuck pig and did its level best to shake Peter off. Joke’s on you, chucklefuck, his hands were like superglue when he wanted them to be.

“How did you get here?” Iron Man asked, hovering just off Peter’s side.

“Webslinging,” Peter replied, and it wasn’t even a lie.

Sam snorted, and Iron Man shot a look at him. Peter grinned, even though they couldn’t see it under the mask, then punched the thing in the snout again.

This one, however, seemed tougher than the last. A Hideous Naked Mole Rat Monster v. 2.0, if you will. Not as vulnerable to attacks around the mouth, hide too thick for Hawkeye’s arrows or Iron Man’s repulsor blasts to cut, strong enough to rip through his webs.

“That’s it,” Iron Man said after a few minutes of hard, fruitless battle. “We’re going nuclear. Spidey, grab on.”

Peter knew and feared that tone. He leapt off the creature and clung to Iron Man’s back, grateful for his sticky fingers as the suit accelerated away from the creature. “Everyone, back off!” Iron Man shouted, circling low among the other avengers. They were smart- they immediately backed the fuck up.

Peter clung a little closer to Tony.

“Light her up, Thor!” Steve shouted, and Thor called down _goddamn lightning_ on the thing, enough that if they were in a cartoon you would have seen its skeleton flash a few times before it collapsed to the ground, unmoving.

Peter crawled around Tony’s suit to get a better view. “It’s dead, right?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s dead,” Iron Man assured him. “You did good in the fight, kid.”

“This one was tougher than the last one,” Peter said. “Stronger, bigger.”

Iron Man nodded. “I did, in fact, pick up on that. I knew we should have hunted down the goddamn creator, but it was movie night.” He landed on the ground next to Steve, and Peter dropped back to his own two feet. To Captain America, he asked, “You put the kid in daycare, right?”

Steve nodded, slinging his shield onto his back. “Want me to go get him?”

“Yeah, and get him a hug while you’re at it,” Iron Man replied. “I’ll deal with this mess.”

“Please don’t cuss out any more first responders,” Steve said wearily. “I always end up doing damage control over it, so just- please, Tony?”

The faceplate went up. Tony replied, “I make no promises.”

Steve heaved a deep sigh. “I’ll go get the kid.”

Fuck.

Peter was the kid.

“I also have to bounce, bye!” Peter shouted, then web-slung (slinged?) himself around to the other side of the building. He stripped off the suit (god, he was thankful he could wear clothes under it) as he ran like hell through the halls of Avengers Tower. The inside was vaguely trashed. It scared him to death the first time he saw the Tower get battered on the news, but having worked there for a year or so now, he knew that rebuilding it and patching it up again was very easy. He just launched himself over the debris until he was back in front of his bunker.

The impenetrable bunker. The one that was impossible to hack into, because Tony Stark designed it that way, to protect him. That bunker.

He did not think this all the way through.

“Peter?” Steve shouted.

Peter tucked the suit under a piece of rubble. “Hey, Steve,” he said, trying to sound cool.

“What part of ‘stay put until one of us comes to get you’ did you not understand?” Steve asked, sounding firm and angry but also hugging Peter tight to his chest. “You could have been killed!”

“I was worried about you guys,” Peter replied.

“We know how to fight bad guys, we do it all the time. You’re a kid. It’s our job to protect you, not the other way around,” Steve said. He pulled away, but left his hands on Peter’s shoulders. “Let me get you home and apologize to your aunt.”

Peter hesitated. “Actually, can you open the bunker again? I left my backpack inside.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but smiled. “FRIDAY, activate daycare protocol, authorization Steven Grant Rogers, the star spangled man with a plan.”

“Tony set the pass-code, didn’t he?” Peter asked.

Steve sighed. “Yeah.”

Peter ducked inside and grabbed his backpack. He unzipped it, then went outside and sloppily tried to throw it over his shoulder. “Oh, sorry, sorry,” he said, fumbling for his things. Steve, predictably, got on all fours to help, picking up pencils and calculators and giving Peter ample opportunity to shove his suit back in the bag and then cover it with old Spanish worksheets. He smiled at Steve. “Thanks. And sorry about not staying put.”

“You just scared me, Peter,” Steve said. “I know you’re safe in the bunker. I can’t be sure if you’re out here.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter repeated. He didn’t promise not to do it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is up early because I'm going out tonight and didn't want to leave you all high and dry :) I'm glad you all are enjoying this!


	5. Chapter 5

 “Your aunt sent Tony an email,” Natasha said, sitting down near enough to Peter to be heard, but not so close as to crowd him or crush any of the projects he had scattered around the workshop. “She’s a little worried about you.”

“How do you know about this email?” Peter asked.

Nat smiled in that controlled Nat way. “I’ve known Tony’s password for a long time now. That’s not the point. Your aunt is worried.”

Peter shrugged, not looking up from the prototype spur he was working on for her. “It’s her job to worry,” he said.

“Yes,” Natasha replied slowly, “But she’s a smart lady. She wouldn’t worry pointlessly. She said you’re always out of the house, you’re dropping extracurriculars, you’re not hanging out with your friends as much. Is that true?”

He didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure if the Avengers had _conspired_ to send Natasha in, or if it was just his bad luck. If she’d asked if he was okay, he could just say yes. He was okay. The specifics… he couldn’t outright lie to a superspy, and any answer other than a resounding “no” would make all his surrogate parents worry about him. He shrugged.

Natasha didn’t respond at first, just stretched out one of her legs. When Peter still didn’t say anything, she switched legs and said, “Steve could have this conversation with you.”

“No, not Steve,” Peter said. Natasha arched an eyebrow. “I’ve just been busy lately. Prioritizing.”

“Okay,” Natasha said. “Busy with what?”

“I don’t know, school stuff, this stuff-“ he gently shook the prototype in his hands- “general stuff. I’m a teenager, we’re supposed to keep weird hours and be disinterested in things.”

Natasha drew her legs up to her chest and considered him. “You can tell us anything, you know that, right?”

“Not if I was a supervillain,” Peter replied.

“Even then,” Natasha said. “We want you to be well, Peter. Other things, too, but the first priority is _well_. You can come to us with any problem, and we’ll help you fix it.” Peter didn’t respond. “Verbally confirm you know this, or I’m getting Steve.”

Peter looked up, but then quickly dropped Natasha’s gaze again. Eye contact with her, right now, felt like touching his fingertips to a hot pan. “I know that,” he said.

Natasha nodded, crisp and formal as a salute. “Good. Wanda has been instructed to hug you now.”

“Wait, what?” Peter asked, but then red light was hoisting him up and Wanda was squeezing him in a bear hug. At least this answered his earlier question- the Avengers planned for this to be Natasha, the world doesn’t just hate him. “Hey, Wanda, how long have you been eavesdropping?”

“A while,” she said, then carefully lowered him back to the ground with her mind.

Peter nodded. “That sounds about right. You guys really don’t do privacy much around here, do you?”

“She’s a spy,” Wanda said, pointing at Natasha, “Vizh can walk through walls, Tony can hack any database, FRIDAY watches our every move, Clint lipreads-“

“I get it,” Peter said, but he couldn’t help but smile.

Wanda looks up and around. “You all can come out now, you know.”

Peter sighed in exasperation as something like two-thirds of the Avengers melted out from behind walls or, in Vision’s case, straight through a wall like the Bethesda glitch he was. Steve clapped Peter on the shoulder, and Tony ruffled his hair. “I can now tell your bizarrely hot aunt that you are, in fact, okay,” Tony said.

“Please stop calling her that,” Peter said.

“And he doesn’t mean just find a new adjective,” Steve added sternly. “Stop commenting on the relative physical attractiveness of Ms. Parker.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “You two are fun-suckers. Anyway, kid, now that we have that gross gooey feelings shit out of the way, want to show me what you’ve been working on for Natasha’s spurs? I’m fairly sure I’m going to die once they’re invented, but let’s get going on them anyway. For fun.”

Peter smiled- his first real ear-to-ear smile of the day. “Aw, I’m sure she wouldn’t kill you-“

“I would!”

“Just maim you a bit,” Peter said. “Someone would pull her off of you. Eventually.”

 

“Hey, Aunt May,” Peter said after Wanda dropped him off at his apartment. “I’m home!”

Aunt May beamed, walking out of the kitchen to greet Peter with a hug. “Hey, kiddo! How was the internship? Did you get to keep working on the, uh, the thing you were making, for the Black Widow? What was that again?”

“We’re calling them spurs for now,” Peter said. “Something to make her kicks a little more lethal, you know? She fights with her legs a lot. And yeah, I worked on them a little bit with Mr. Stark. Also, Natasha cornered me and said that you’d told them you were worried about me because I’ve been busy, you traitor.” The last was said without any real bite, just as conversational and casual as the rest of what he’d said.

Aunt May held up her hands in mock surrender. “C’mon, kiddo, you and me are on the same team. I’m just trying to look out for my teammate. You’re only at that internship four days a week, Peter, I thought I’d see you, you know, _home_ the other three days.”

Peter shrugged, tossing his backpack in the general direction of his room. “I like studying at school, you know that. The library is nice.”

“The library is nice,” Aunt May echoed dryly, voice full of doubt.

“I don’t know, it’s nice. It has nice people in it.” Nice people, meaning Ned, who covered for Peter in exchange for detailed retellings of any cool fights Peter got into. Ned had almost cried when Peter told him the Avengers agreed to train him, and actually did cry when he saw the new and improved suit.

Peter couldn’t blame him. The suit was amazing. He cried when he saw it too.

“Nice people,” Aunt May echoed again, this time knowingly. “Is one of them someone special?”

“Special?”

“You know,” Aunt May said, waggling her eyebrows absurdly. “Special. You know, for a while I thought maybe you and Ned-“

“NOPE NOPE NOPE-“

“But then he mentioned that you were talking to someone named MJ?”

Oh. It all came roaring back to Peter now- a couple of times Aunt May had tried to call him while he was “studying in the library”, and Ned had made up some excuse as to why Peter wasn’t there. There was only so long Peter could be “in the bathroom”, and Ned had complained about coming up with new excuses, and MJ was cool and _also_ studied in the library a lot…  

Welp. Aunt May was wrong, but this would get her off his back, _guaranteed_. “Okay,” Peter said, squaring his shoulders. “I talk to MJ sometimes when I’m at the library. Maybe that’s why I like to study there.” Aunt May opened her mouth to speak. “Please don’t make this weird.”

Aunt May shut her mouth, thought for a second, then asked, “Is MJ a boy, or a girl? Or both, or neither, or-“

“I get it, Aunt May, you’re an open-minded citizen of the twenty-first century, and I appreciate it,” Peter said. “MJ is a girl. The M is for Michelle.”

Aunt May nodded. “I just didn’t want to assume.”

Peter nodded. That was genuinely nice to know, in case he ever had time to even think about getting a boyfriend or a girlfriend or whatever-friend, but now was not the time. “Anyway, Aunt May, I don’t want to jinx it and it’s kind of new, so I’m just hanging out at the library a lot for now, okay? Me, Ned, MJ. It’s not that I don’t love you, it’s just-“

“Okay, Peter,” Aunt May said. “You know I love you, right?”

“I love you too, Aunt May,” Peter said. He retreated to his bedroom, kicking his backpack inside and shutting the door, leaning against it. Lying to Aunt May was not his favorite thing, but he had to keep being Spider-Man. He _had_ to. She’d make him stop, and he had to keep being Spider-Man, so this was the only option.

Didn’t make him stop feeling like a shitty nephew, though.

 

The next day, he came right back to Avengers Tower, this time in his suit. “Am I late?” he asked, dropping into the main gym where they tended to have war councils. “I’m sorry if I’m late, traffic was a mess.”

Falcon scowled at him. “You don’t drive. I don’t even think you’re _old_ enough to drive.”

Peter resisted the impulse to stick out his tongue. “I can _drive_ ,” he said, insulted. Because he could. With a learner’s permit and a licensed adult over the age of 25 in the passenger seat.

“You’re not late,” Captain America assured him. “FRIDAY, tell Tony he’s late.”

“Done,” FRIDAY responded. “He is on his way now.”

Seconds later, Tony skidded into the room, screwdriver between his teeth and circuitry in his hands. “I’m not late, you liar.”

“It got you here, didn’t it?” Cap replied. “Now. We really need to do something about the monsters that have been coming through the city this past week or so. Spider-Man noticed that the most recent battle against them was more difficult, as if they’d been upgraded. I think we need to find out who’s doing the upgrading, and take them out.”

The Black Widow nodded. “They can’t be too far away. Transporting a creature that size would be inconvenient over short distances, impossible over long ones.”

“Unless magic is involved,” Thor said. “The way it resisted attack- I would not rule out magic as a possible ingredient in the foul creatures’ creation.”

“It would help if we had a living sample,” Bruce said, gaze skittering around the room. “We could get a better look at how they’re made. There’s gotta be something unique in them we could track purchases of, at the very least.”

Spider-Man raised his hand. Tony burst out laughing. “Yes, kid, you can talk,” he said.

Welp. Peter cleared his throat. “I caught one,” he said. “The straggler, from the first wave that I fought. Just before you guys recruited me. I tied it to the ground and then, um, I don’t know what happened to it, but-“

Cap nodded. “SHIELD took it, they let me know.”

“Of course SHIELD took it,” Tony said derisively.

Widow shot him a look. “We can look into that angle. Me, Clint, and Bruce can come at it from that end-“

“I can look into any magic users with an affinity for monstrous rodents,” Thor offered. “I could use the help of the young witch as well.”

“Sounds good,” Cap said. “Wanda, go with him. Tony, you and Vision start looking into possible places within reason where someone might go about genetically engineering a creature like this. Me, Falcon, and Spider-Man can patrol the city in the meantime, see if we can find any more information and be first responders in case any more of these things turn up. Go.”

Natasha and Clint turned to each other and shouted in eerie, perfect unison, “I have dibs on piloting!” Natasha growled in frustration as Clint added, “Sorry, I can’t hear you, I’m going to go prepare the plane, goodbye!”

“I hate that idiot,” Natasha muttered.

“Pray for me,” Bruce said, then trotted off after the two of them towards the Quinjets.

Thor offered an arm to Wanda. “To Asgard?”

“To Asgard,” she replied. They walked off, presumably to make their way to some location where the freaky Asgard magic could beam them up (Scotty) to the magic Norse mythological palace in the sky.

Tony slung an arm around Vision’s shoulders and started talking his ear off about search algorithms, leaving Peter alone with Captain America and Falcon. He discreetly pinched himself in the arm because _what the fuck was his life._

“You sure you’re up for this, shortstack?” Falcon asked dubiously.

“Yeah,” Peter said, voice cracking. He briefly wished for death, then said, “I can ask some people I know in the neighborhood if they’ve seen anything, heard anything weird. I mean, other than the giant naked mole rat attacks, because obviously, they saw that… and it was weird.”

Steve hummed. “Naked mole rats? Really?”

“That’s what they are!” Peter replied. Doubt, sudden and crippling. “Right?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Falcon said.

Steve shot a look at his friend. “Spider-Man, canvassing your usual area would be really helpful for us. Keep an eye out for anything that might indicate the kind of engineering it would take to make a monster- abandoned warehouses, shipping containers, men in uniforms you don’t recognize, those kinds of things. And of course talk to your usual contacts about anything out of the ordinary.”

Usual area. Contacts. Actual Captain America was treating Spider-Man like a bona fide superhero, not an off-brand of an off-brand. “I won’t let you down, sir,” Peter said, then raced off to circle his territory, twice, and talk to everyone he’d ever known or heard of, and look in the windows of every warehouse in the area, and listen to the sides of every shipping container, until it was two AM and he was exhausted and he barely made it home to collapse in an heap in his bed, asleep before his head even hit the pillow.

 

This, in retrospect, was his mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger! If it's any consolation, know that Aunt May’s face, when she’s questioning Peter about the identity of his crush object, is John Mulaney’s face when he’s imitating the real estate agent that is really interested in him and his wife having kids (if you don't know what I'm talking about, YouTube search "John Mulaney real estate", you're welcome). That is the exact face. She temporarily morphs into John Mulaney and it’s awesome. 
> 
> Thanks for all the feedback! I'll be updating tomorrow night, just like usual.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahaha all of you made guesses because of that cliffhanger and all of you were wrong i love this power

Peter woke up the next morning tangled in his sheets. Supernaturally sticky skin was inconvenient to deal with first thing, because he inevitably got so burrito-wrapped in blankets and sheets it took him forever to get out. He was a genius, but not that early in the morning.

Finally, he got himself unwrapped and trudged to the kitchen. Cereal sounded good for the morning. Aunt May picked up some of those frosted mini-wheat things yesterday, and they should have milk? He opened the fridge to check. There was milk, but there was also Aunt May’s overnight oats she had every morning. Still in the fridge.

“Aunt May?” he called, looking around the kitchen. More things were wrong. The coffeemaker was dark, cold, and empty. All the chairs were pushed in. Her door was ajar.

“Aunt May?” he shouted, louder this time. He knocked on her door and walked into her room. Her bed was on its side, her bookshelves were knocked over and her trinkets littered the floor, and most hauntingly, the window was wide open.

He swallowed hard. Something was horribly wrong.

And there was a tiny figurine of a naked mole rat in the middle of the chaos.

It slammed into him- last night. Cap telling him to patrol. Him doing it so enthusiastically he was exhausted by the time he was done, and between that and the Black Widow assuring him she would no longer try to follow him home, he wasn’t watching his back as carefully as he should have been. He was tired, and cocky, and lazy, and because of that Aunt May was… Aunt May was…

He wiped the tears off his face and forced himself to breathe. When it didn’t work, he sat down and leaned against the doorjamb, fighting for breath. “It’s my fault,” Peter said to himself. “My fault, my fault.” With great power comes great responsibility, Uncle Ben said. Was Peter doomed to lose a parent every time he forgot for even a second? He was fifteen years old. He was not equipped to deal with this shit. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do it, he quit, he quit, he was out, it was too hard, he needed to stop.

With great power comes great responsibility.

His responsibility.

“It’s my fault, I have to fix it,” Peter said. He got himself back under control, breathing hard and wiping away his tears. “It’s my fault, I have to fix it.” Forgetting school entirely, he got suited up, grabbed the naked mole rat figurine, and took off. He couldn’t do this on his own. He just couldn’t.

The Avengers were awake (poor souls) and eating a team breakfast when Peter came barreling into their dining room. They barely had time to startle when Peter pulled off his mask, locked eyes with Cap, and said, “The bad guy, the one who was making the naked mole rats, he took Aunt May. She’s gone. She’s just gone.”

There was a horrible moment of silence where the knot in his throat grew and his stomach sank and everyone looked at him with food and mugs halfway between their plates and their mouths. “Peter,” Steve finally said, “What-“

Fuck. He fucked up, he fucked up, he fucked up. “I’m sorry,” Peter said. “I’m so sorry.” This was a bad idea. The only idea, but a bad idea. Tactical retreat. “I’m just gonna- I’m so sorry,” he said, and bolted.

 

He ended up in his usual corner in the workshop, with his box of broken things, tinkering with Natasha’s spurs.

“Don’t run again, it’s just me,” Tony said, slouching in the doorjamb across the room from Peter.

Peter didn’t look up, just swallowed hard and readjusted some of the wiring. “I’m sorry-“

“I got that,” Tony said. “I know. It’s okay, you’re forgiven. We’re not mad. Surprised, a little, maybe confused and I think you hurt Steve’s feelings, but nobody’s mad.” He sauntered across the room and sat down across from Peter, grabbing the explosive-arrow-making kit. He idly started assembling explosive arrowheads, and for a while, they worked in silence.

“I knew you’d come here,” Tony offered. “Even bet you’d be working on that. Nat’s the only all-human close-range fighter we have, and so- never tell her I said this or I will ruin your life- so she needs our help the most. And so you’d be working on something for her, to protect her as much as you can when she’s fighting crazy superhuman monsters and shit. You’re a good kid.”

Peter swallowed again, because eventually he was going to dislodge whatever had taken up permanent and painful residence in the back of his throat. “Got Aunt May kidnapped though,” Peter said.

“Not you too,” Tony said with a sigh. “I’ve got Cap and Sam beating themselves up over it upstairs.” Peter looked up at Tony for the first time that conversation, eyes wide with disbelief. “They were responsible for patrolling the city and keeping this asshole from hurting anyone else.”

“And me,” Peter said. “And it was in my piece, and I-“

“Nope,” Tony replied lightly. “Peter, you’re fifteen years old. We all knew Spider-Man was a teenager. It was on Cap and Sam to supervise you, make sure you did everything okay. You probably screwed up, but it was our job to keep an eye on you and catch your mistakes. They failed too.”

Peter tinkered a little more with the spur. “What do they do? Instead of this?”

“Steve destroys punching bags,” Tony said. “Sam flies.”

“And… you?”

Tony held up the explosive arrowheads. “We’re cut from the same cloth, you and me,” he said. “I come down here too. Do my part to keep the rest of them safe. Blame myself for things I can’t really control.”

Peter laughed bitterly. “Be careful what you wish for… I always wanted to be just like you.”

“You’re better,” Tony said. “Already, at fifteen. Better.” He risked a quick glance over at Peter. “We like having you around, kid. Wall-crawling or tech-tinkering. We like it when you’re around, and we’re going to help you through this. We’ll fix it together.”

“Together,” Peter echoed.

Tony nodded. “You ready to go back and face the music?”

“No,” Peter replied.

“Okay,” Tony said.

They tinkered in silence.

Peter should really stop delaying the inevitable. He’d have to go up there and face them all sometime, and the quicker he did it the quicker they could all get to Aunt May, but then he pictured all their faces, all their surprised and hurt and disappointed faces, and his throat closed up with nerves and panic.

“Could I maybe have a hug?” Peter asked in a rush. That was dumb of him, Tony wasn’t a hugger, Tony rarely initiated physical contact other than a fist bump, he was always all _someone else get this kid a hug_ -

Tony carefully wrapped one arm around Peter’s shoulders and squeezed, a hug that reassured him without crowding him. Peter closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and reminded himself that he was not alone, not alone, not alone.

 

He came back to an Avengers team meeting with Tony’s arm still slung over his shoulders. He was still in his Spider-Man suit, but the mask was off, and he had a piece of tech in his hands. A collision of worlds, in the best way.

Wanda was the first one to see him, and, being Wanda, immediately seized him with red light and drew him in for a hug. “Idiot boy,” she said into his hair. “Do not lie to the people who love you.”

Peter took a fortifying breath. “I know. I’m sorry. I just-“

“It’s okay, Peter,” Steve said, locking eyes with Peter over Wanda’s shoulder. “We might not agree with the choices you made, but we understand them, and now is not the time to argue about them. We can hash that all out later, though. Your aunt is in trouble. Let’s get her back.”

Wanda released Peter. He tugged his mask back on and took his place in the loose circle of Avengers. “Okay,” Spider-Man said. “Let’s do this.”

“The good news is, he made a mistake,” Natasha said, plucking the little figurine up from the table with her gloved hands. “He left us a clue.”

“And he pissed us off,” Steve said. “Let’s go make him regret it.”

Tony snapped his fingers and pointed at Vision. “Vision! You’re a supercomputer-“

“A gross oversimplification-“

“Check the cameras we installed to watch the block around Peter’s place, it should have caught some idiot with bioengineering abilities snatching up Ms. Parker,” Tony said.

Vision shot him a look of deep loathing, but walked over to the bay of computers and started going through them at a speed that made Peter feel a little sick to his stomach. “Wait,” Peter said. “You guys put cameras up around my house?”

“Not to spy on you,” Tony said. “I promise.” Peter looked unconvinced. Tony pointed at Steve. “It was Captain Helpful’s idea!”

Steve sighed. “We knew our enemies might target you, Peter, so we installed some hidden cameras to keep an eye on your block. We don’t watch the tapes unless we have a good reason, like right now.”

“Of course, maybe we should have,” Natasha mused. “We would have found out about the Spider-Man thing that much sooner.”

“And it would have been a gross invasion of Peter’s privacy,” Steve said.

Natasha waved a hand. “Details.”

“Found it,” Vision said. The other Avengers (and Peter) crowded around him, looking at the image on the screen. It was pretty much everything they’d learned to expect in this bizarre new world- a skinny guy in a lab coat overseeing two hulking guys in all-black wearing ski masks, holding Aunt May between them.

Peter saw his hand touch the screen without really meaning to do it. “Do you think they hurt her?” he asked, voice small.

Wanda put a hand on his shoulder, and Steve said, “Unlikely. It looks like she’s a hostage for now, and it doesn’t make much sense to hurt a hostage.”

Peter drew hard on his memories of cop shows he’d watched, all the police procedurals that made for good background noise while studying. “But… shouldn’t they have made a request? Or something? Left a note like hi, we have your aunt, give us a million dollars or-“

He couldn’t finish the thought.

“We’ll get her back, Peter,” Steve said. “I promise.”

Vision’s fingers flew once again over the keyboards at a terrifying, inhuman speed. “I am checking all street-facing cameras that were recording last night,” he explained.

Natasha nodded. “Need help breaking into any of them?”

“We are not hacking into street cameras,” Steve said.

Tony clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re right. We’re not. Vision and Nat are.”

A few minutes of frantic keystrokes later, Natasha sat back with a satisfied smile. “It’s always an abandoned warehouse,” she said. “What are they gonna do when the economy recovers and those warehouses reactivate?”

“Hell if I know,” Tony said, leaning in. On the screens was an image of, as Nat said, an abandoned warehouse, with the two goons and the scientist walking inside.

Peter nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”

He’d taken a few steps towards the nearest window before a hand grabbed the back of his collar- Thor. “Patience, Peter. There is strength in numbers. We will go together.”

“Besides,” Tony added, “Web-slinging is fast, but flying is faster. We can give you a lift.”

Peter blinked. He hadn’t thought of that. The Avengers started pairing up, one member who could fly next to one member who couldn’t. “What, did you think half of us fought through New York City traffic to get to our battles?” Natasha asked, next to Wanda.

Tony extended a hand. “Hop on, Spider-Man. We’ve got a fight to win.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :] they know now :]
> 
> TIME FOR A SHOWDOWN


	7. Chapter 7

 

The abandoned warehouse was something out of an action-adventure movie. The Avengers (and Peter) all landed on a nearby rooftop to scope out the place. It was a comical sight, Peter thought, all these ultra-powerful people hiding from a handful of goons, but Captain America had made it very, very clear that they were not to go in without a plan, especially because they had Aunt May.

“I see a handful of goons and Peter’s aunt… there’s lab coat guy… and-“ Clint winced- “Two of those monster abominations.”

“Two?” Cap asked.

Hawkeye looked up from his scope. “Two,” he said. “They’re big, my eyes are great, and despite what Nat says, I can count that high.”

“I’d bet they’ve been updated again,” Tony said. “Version three-point-oh. That’s what I’d have done.”

“Comments like that are why SHIELD has a plan for you in case you ever turn to the dark side,” Natasha said, pocketing her binoculars. “Cap?”

Cap thought for a long second, then nodded once. “Okay. I’m going to get the goons. There’s only a handful of them, and they’re all around Ms. Parker, right?”

“Yup,” Hawkeye replied.

“Okay. I get the goons, and while they’re distracted, Peter, you get your aunt the hell out of there. Widow, I want you to get the guy in the lab coat. He probably orchestrated this whole mess, I want him captured alive.”

Widow smirked. “Easy.”

“The rest of you,” Cap said, looking around, “I have a feeling the bad guys have some tricks on their sleeve. Try and take down the monsters, but if you can’t, keep them distracted, and keep them in the warehouse. The less collateral damage we have this time, the better.”

Tony stretched- a meaningless gesture inside his armor. “I’ll pay for the damages, you know I will.”

“Yeah, but we shouldn’t break anything unless we have to,” Cap said. “Hawkeye, you want to back us up from the sky or get in the melee?”

“Backup,” Clint said. “In case any get out, I can at least try to turn them back.”

Cap nodded. “All right. On my mark, let’s go.”

Swinging into the building was one of the best feelings of Peter’s life- it was a little absurd to say out loud, but it was true. He was flying through the air, Captain America at his heels and the rest of the Avengers arrayed around him, on his way to fight bad guys and save innocent civilians. This was the kind of feeling action movies were designed to approximate, and Peter was _living_ it. Loving it.

Peter learned one lesson right away- if you’re a presumably-underpaid goon working for a mad scientist and just helped kidnap an innocent civilian, and Captain America comes running at you with his shield in hand and righteous fury in his eyes, you turn tail and _run_.

“They just don’t make henchmen like they used to,” Cap said, and threw his shield. It hit one guy on the head, ricocheted a few times, hit two other guys on the head, then clanged firmly back to his arm. “Come on, gentlemen.”

Peter couldn’t stay and watch- he pulled out a knife and cut his aunt free. She was unconscious, but otherwise looked totally fine. Breathing evenly, no cuts or bruises, her color was good, everything. Peter held her close and web-slung himself the hell out of there, landing back on Hawkeye’s rooftop.

“Sup,” Hawkeye said.

“I got Aunt May out,” Peter said. “Can you guard her?”

Hawkeye didn’t look up from his bow. “Sure.”

Peter settled her down carefully on the ground by Hawkeye’s side. “Sorry, Aunt May,” he said, then swept back into the building.

It was pandemonium.

The guy in the lab coat was losing badly in a hand-to-hand fight with the Black Widow, and the entire rest of the Avengers team was fighting the two naked mole rat abominations. And losing. One of Tony’s gauntlets was already dark and cold, and Wanda was bleeding from a nasty gash in her forehead.

“Get out of here, son!” Captain America shouted, hurling his shield at one of the abominations after spotting Peter. “It’s not safe!”

“I know that,” Peter replied. “But I can help!”

Steve shook his head. “No, you can’t. Go home!”

Then one of the creatures tried to eat him, and Steve became a little distracted trying to fight his way out from the two horrible teeth.

Peter clutched to the rafter he’d landed on after he’d swung back in. He could go, get Aunt May and take her home. He saw the course of that path very clearly- tinkering with other peoples’ weapons in the afternoons, watching the news whenever the Avengers saved the world while trying not to throw up from nerves, putting on his mask less and less often until he hung it up for good. He’d be safe, in that future, protected by the Avengers that had adopted him as a family.

He’d be safe, but… he wouldn’t be him.

Spider-Man swung into battle, aiming perfectly to hit one of the abominations in the snout with both feet. The thing barely even blinked, confirming his suspicion- the weak spot had been reinforced.

There had to be another one.

 _If I were a mad scientist making naked mole rat abominations, what would I forget to reinforce?_ For the first edition monsters, he’d thought to protect the eyes. For the most recent, he’d realized he needed to protect the snout. What other weak spots might a creature have that a scientist might not have considered?

The idea occurred to him.

“I am a bad person,” Spider-Man said aloud, calculating arcs and trajectories in his head. “And if I’m wrong, I’m gonna look like an idiot. Let’s go.”

He timed it out, took careful aim, and shot webbing at one of the rafters. Checking his flight path one more time, he closed his eyes, and swung out with both feet aiming directly between the abomination’s legs.

“WHAT THE FUCK,” someone shouted, but Spider-Man could barely hear them over the sound of a giant naked mole rat _losing its fucking mind_. The thing fell to the ground, squealing in pain- Spidey saw what was going to happen before it did, and managed to web the Black Widow out of the way before she was crushed by the flailing, falling body of an honest-to god monster.

Once it was on its back, thrashing and screeching in pain, it was child’s play for Iron Man to repulsor-blast the thing in the mouth, cooking it from the inside out.

“One down, one to go,” Spider-Man said, turning to the other one. Except, of course, that these were the Avengers and they were not stupid, and Thor was calling lightning down on the creature’s mouth as Hulk looked supremely satisfied with himself behind its legs.

Captain America marched towards Spider-Man, death in his eyes. “You and me are going to have a _conversation_ , young man,” he said.

“Aunt May,” Peter replied.

Cap clicked his comm and said, “Hawkeye, get Ms. Parker home. I’m going to have a little _talk_ with our newest recruit.”

The way he kept saying “conversation” and “talk”, all italicized and everything, somewhat dampened Peter’s enthusiasm about how his day had gone. It had been a total rollercoaster (the good kind, that scared the shit out of you but made you happy about it), but that tone did not bode well for his future. So, when Tony said, “I’m gonna be in on this conversation too,” his heart lifted a little. Captain America was steadfast in what he thought was Right. Tony, well, Tony’s morals were a little more up for debate. They were definitely things that existed, but also Peter was more likely to talk him around.

“Please don’t break him,” Wanda said, arching an eyebrow at Cap.

Cap just sighed, put an arm around Peter’s shoulders, and marched him out of the building.

 

Peter had no idea where the hell the rest of the Avengers had gone, because he and Steve and Tony were all sitting down for their Discussion in the Tower, and they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of any of the other Avengers on their way in.

They sat in total silence for maybe half a minute before Steve said, “Do you have any idea how reckless you were today?”

Irritation flashed through Peter- “I’m being called reckless by the guy who signed up to be a lab rat for the government?”

“That’s not gonna help your case,” Tony noted.

“Yes, you’re being called reckless by me, the guy in charge of the Avengers team who specifically _told you_ to get out of the way. You could have died today, Peter! You could have been _killed_ and we would have had to explain that to your aunt, and you are fifteen years old. You should not be out there fighting the kinds of things we fight at _fifteen_ , it is unacceptable, what the hell am I even fighting for if we have _children_ on the front line-“

“Okay,” Tony said. “You good, Cap?”

Steve turned to him with a horrified, furious expression. “No, _Tony_ , I am not ‘good’, Peter just threw himself into the line of fire after I specifically told him _not to do that_ -“

“I can handle myself!” Peter said. “I can do this, I _do_ do this, I have powers and I have to use them. I know I could use some training, I won’t fight you on that, but I can fight bad guys. I do fight bad guys. It’s my job.”

“No, Peter, it’s not your job. It’s our job, and it is also our job to keep you safe, which means we can’t let you dress up in that suit and throw yourself into the line of fire!”

Tony held up a hand. “Are the both of you ready to listen yet?”

Steve sighed. “Fine, _futurist_ , what do you have to say?”

“Peter’s not a child,” he said to Steve, and before Peter could feel too nice about that Tony immediately turned to him and added, “You’re not an adult, either. You’re fifteen, in-between. Cap, we can’t stop him from doing this. I can take away his suit, we can tail him all the time, but he has these powers, he’s started using them like this, and I don’t think it’s a productive use of anyone’s time to try and make him stop.”

“So we just let him face the _insanity_ we have to deal with, day in and day out?” Steve asked, incredulous.

Peter scowled. “I can handle myself.”

“You’re a child,” Steve said.

“He’s a teenager,” Tony corrects. “We need to treat you like a teenager, Peter. That’s fair, right?”

“What does that mean?” Peter asked.

Tony tipped his chair back on two legs. “First off, you gotta listen to Cap. Even when he’s being an ass. He’s in charge for a reason. He knows things you might not know. We can’t have you in the field if we can’t trust you to listen to instructions, even if you hate them.”

Steve frowned. “Was… was that an insult or a compliment? Or both?”

“I can listen to Cap,” Peter said, nodding.

“Even if he tells you to sit back out of a fight?” Tony asked.

Peter fidgeted with the edge of a sleeve. “… I want to fight. I get that sometimes it might be, you know, too much for me, but I want to learn. I want to do this. I don’t want you guys to treat me like a baby.”

“I know,” Tony said. “But you’re a teenager, so we’re not going to treat you like an adult. We will treat you. Like a teenager. And teenagers need to listen to the people in charge of them.” He turned to Steve. “Cap, what are some reasonable restrictions you would like to put on Spider-Man?”

Steve gritted his teeth. “I have to do this?”

“Unless you want him going out there in the leggings and sleeveless hoodie again, throwing himself into fights with no training or backup,” Tony said.

“Goddammit,” Steve said under his breath, then locked eyes with Peter. “You listen to us. You patrol with one of us as backup. You _train for this_ , like all of us have. You tell us if you’re ever scared or hurt or _anything_.”

Peter nodded hard and fast. “Yeah. Yes. I can do that. Is that all?”

Steve’s eyes turned lost and sad, and he swallowed. “Never scare me like that again. Swinging at those monsters- you scared the _hell_ out of me.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter said. He wasn’t sorry he did it, but he was sorry to freak Steve out.

Tony pointed at them. “You’ve made up, now hug!”

Without hesitation, Steve stood and pulled Peter into a somewhat bone-crushing hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” Steve said. “You will obey those rules completely or I will _throw you out of here_.”

“I’m glad I’m okay too,” Peter said. “And I can follow rules, as long as they’re fair. Just like you.”

“I guess I deserved that,” Steve said, and pulled away. “We worry because we care about you- you know that, right, Peter?”

Peter nodded. “Yeah. I love you guys too.”

Tony clapped his hands, then rubbed them together. “All right! Let’s tell everyone what’s going on with our new Avenger-in-training!”

“Are you gonna put AIT on my costume instead of the A?” Peter asked.

Tony cackled. “I am now. That’s amazing. Come on, Wanda needs to hug you and also mock you about everything for a full year, and I want a front-row seat to that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are coming to the end of our journey, amigos. This is the last REAL chapter of the story, but there's a little epilogue for you guys that I'll be posting tomorrow night. Thank you all for your enthusiasm following this story, and if you really enjoyed it, thank general_lelia (toedameron on tumblr) for the amazing prompt!!! I'm not sure if you can tell, but I had a lot of fun with it ;)


	8. Epilogue

Webbing shot across the workroom, attaching itself to the high ceiling. Spider-Man swung from it, Tarzan-style, to the wall on the far side, landing on the vertical surface and clambering down to the box of broken things. He tore off his mask, leaving it on the ground near his backpack and his web-fluid-making setup. He scooped up the box with a graze of his fingertips and dashed back across the room, where the Black Widow was waiting, still scuffed up from the fight. Dangling from her hand was one of her spurs.

“Took you long enough,” she said with the slightest quirk of her mouth, dropping the spur in Peter’s box. “I cracked the casing again.”

Peter sighed, but he wasn’t sure if she could tell, because he was still kind of huffing from the fight and then booking it across the room. “When I got the idea of making these for you, I didn’t think you’d break them so much.”

She unclasped one of her bracelets and dropped it in too. “I broke that one too.”

“You sadistic…” Peter said. “I’ll work on making these Widow-proof.”

Natasha patted his cheek. “Good boy,” she said, and sauntered along.

Next in the line was Sam, cradling Redwing to his chest like Peter was going to try and snatch the thing. “You got more of your webbing on me,” Sam said.

“I needed to hitch a ride,” Peter replied.

“Make your dad do it next time,” Sam said, and before Peter could get offended or upset, he added, “Tony’s up there too, and he doesn’t mind you getting your gunk all over him. Me, I have to deal with the sticky-slimy sensation of your stupid webbing on my legs every time you want to fly. Spiders don’t fly, kid. Shoulda thought of that before you made spiders your gimmick.”

Peter smiled. “I didn’t pick the spiders, Sam. The spiders picked me.”

“I don’t trust you with Redwing,” Sam said.

Tony, passing by Sam on his way to work on his suit, said, “On your left. Also, I’m not touching Redwing again, so it’s Peter or it’s nothing.”

“I hate you,” Sam said to Tony’s retreating back. With utmost reluctance, he extended his hands, Redwing cradled in them. “Please give him another tune-up, spider-kid.”

Peter carefully took Redwing and placed the drone on a nearby table. “Will do, Sam. I promise, Redwing will be fine.”

“He better be,” Sam said. “Also, your webbing gunked up my wings, so they’re basically nonfunctional. You should do something about that.” He shrugged the wings off, letting them drop to the ground. “Another reason Tony should be your ride.”

“That man has weird priorities,” Peter said as Sam walked away.

“Eh, the wings are replaceable. Redwing, not so much,” Steve explained. He had his thumbs in his belt buckle again, looking at Peter with a proud, almost paternal smile. “You did good in the fight today. Remembered your training.”

Peter beamed. “Nat’s really scary when she wants to be. Her lessons always stick.”

“You’re doing a great job,” Steve said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You keeping up with everything else okay? Homework, chores, spending time with your aunt?”

Peter nodded. “Yeah. Things are good. I’m in a good place right now. I just… did we ever find out why that guy took Aunt May? Or what was up with the naked mole rats?”

Steve hesitated, then put a reassuring hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Natasha questioned him herself, under SHIELD’s supervision. He saw you fight the first one, thought your DNA might make a good addition to it, and tracked you home. Aunt May was the bait for a trap set for you.”

“He didn’t realize I had a family backing me up,” Peter said. He was too lost in his own thoughts to see Steve tear up slightly at the word “family.” “But the naked mole rats? What the _hell_ was up with that?”

“Language,” Steve rebuked. “Peter, in this line of work… life is strange, and it’s easier if you don’t question it.”

Peter nodded. “I get that. But- naked mole rats?”

“I know.” Steve sighed. “Moving on to things we do understand- if you don’t mind-“ he unclipped the-thingy-that-makes-his-shield-come-back from his forearm. Peter asked Tony if the piece of tech had a proper name, and after multiple lewd and/or curse-filled suggestions, they settled on the thingy-that-makes-his-shield-come-back. Steve offered it to Peter with a sheepish smile. “It glitched on me a few times during the fight today- the shield came back, but I couldn’t get it to stick on the- the thing. Could you look it over?”

Peter dropped it in the box of broken things. “I’ll put it on the list.”

“Thanks, Peter,” Steve said. He clapped him on the shoulder one more time. “I’m proud of you,” he said, then walked off.

Clint didn’t make eye contact, just unslung his quiver and dropped it in the box. “I’m out of arrowheads. Chop chop, let’s get Tony’s child-labor sweatshop going!”

Peter closed his eyes and put one hand to his temple.

“… what are you doing?”

“I’m summoning them,” Peter said, opening his eyes. “The spiders. I’m telling them to come for you.”

“Bullshit, that’s not one of your powers,” Clint said.

Peter closed his eyes again and feigned deep concentration. “That you know of.”

There was a pause, just long enough for Peter to know he’d gotten to Clint. “I’m going to go douse myself in bug spray. You, make me some arrowheads.”

“You shouldn’t let him get to you, Spider-boy,” Wanda’s voice said. Peter looked over to see her half-laughing. “He just likes to tease, it’s how he shows affection.”

“I was teasing him back!” Peter replied brightly. “Right?”

Wanda grinned. “Good one.”

Vision, her bizarre shadow, said, “Peter, I have nothing broken for you, but during the fight I had to remain immaterial for approximately twenty seconds, during which time I misplaced my comm. Could you make another one for me?”

“Sure,” Peter said, “But because I have no idea how you work, this problem will probably happen again.”

Vision nodded. “Good enough.”

Peter nodded back. “Okay, sounds good.” He pulled a scrap piece of paper from his pockets, wrote “VISION COMM” on it, and tossed it in the box of broken things.

Wanda and Vision walked off, leaving Thor in front of Peter, beaming. “Peter! This version of the comm device survived the battle!”

A grin broke out across Peter’s face. “Seriously?” he asked. “Version 116 worked? Dude, that is so _awesome_ -“

“It is, however, full of static,” Thor said, holding out the comm with an apologetic look. “I called down lightning twice in this last round-“

“I noticed-“

“And after the second strike the device crackled annoyingly in my ear whenever it was in use,” Thor said. “Are you able to fix this?”

Peter sighed and plucked the comm from Thor’s fingers. “Version 116.1, coming right up. Now with less static.”

Thor clapped him on the back, making Peter nearly cough up both his lungs. “You are a valiant fighter in combat and an able assistant in matters electronical! Truly, we were blessed when you came into our lives.”

“Love you too,” Peter said. Or, at least he tried. His lungs were still a little empty from that resounding pat on the back.

Thor beamed and bounced along deeper into the tower. Bruce gave Peter a small, sympathetic smile. “Focus on breathing in,” Bruce said. “That helps.”

“Man, I’m trying,” Peter said. It was fine, really. Thor knew how to temper his strength, there was no lasting damage. Peter bent over and plucked a flash drive out of the side pocket of his backpack. He tossed it to Bruce, who fumbled the catch. “More tunes, courtesy of MJ. She’s still in a banjo kinda mood, hope that’s okay for you.”

Bruce nodded, turning the drive over in his hands. “They’re good, for, you know. After.”

Peter grinned. “Only the best for you, Dr. Banner.”

Bruce rolled his eyes and walked away, but he was smiling to himself. Peter chalked that one up as a victory.

That was everyone, safely settled back in the Tower after a successful mission. Peter peeled back his gloves and settled down next to his box of broken things. Time to get to work.

He loved his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is it for my "the Avengers adopt Peter Parker and Spider-Man separately" fic! I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it- I have literally never before in my life completed something longer than a twoshot in such a short amount of time. general_lelia literally sent me this prompt via text less than a month ago, and now I have a completed 18k word multi-chapter fic. That never happens to me!!!! I'm growing as a writer!!!!!
> 
> Also what are you talking about the guy with the naked mole rats TOTALLY had a fleshed-out backstory and motivation I would never lazily shoehorn an Evil Agenda into the epilogue for a villain who did things solely to create angst for our protagonists and move the main plot along I am a Good Writer I don't pull shit like that


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